A familiar story: Edgewood trips up Big Foot

The Big Foot girls volleyball team stepped off its ride—a stretch GMC Topkick truck—with an intensity that carried the Chiefs to a first-set victory.

For the second consecutive year, however, Madison Edgewood turned around and beat the Chiefs in three straight sets in a WIAA playoff match, this time earning a trip to state. The Crusaders—who beat Big Foot in four in a sectional semifinal a year ago—topped the Chiefs 16-25, 25-23, 25-12, 25-21 in a Division 2 sectional final on Saturday night.

“The desire was there, and it was hard to match our intensity of game one,” Big Foot coach Jen Koplitz said. “We were so high in game one, then we lost game two, which was so close. This is the exact same thing that happened to us last year.”

Saturday’s first set was a complete 180-degree turn from Thursday’s sectional semifinal, when Big Foot was sluggish from the first serve but recovered to win 3-1.

Senior Amy Schryver had four of her team-high 20 kills and an ace as the Chiefs used a 13-4 run to close it out.

“Lights out,” Koplitz said. “We came up really excited.”

Some of that energy took a gut-punch when Big Foot fell behind 12-6 in the second set. The Chiefs recovered with an 8-2 run that tied the score at 20-all, and it was 23-23 when they suffered a mishit. Then Edgewood’s Rachel Roseboom slammed a kill to tie the match at a set apiece.

“You don’t want to blame it on being loud, but we lost our communication,” Big Foot senior libero Mackenzie Long said. “We just weren’t mixing things up and trying different things to make them keep moving. They were constantly keeping us moving.”

The third set was all Edgewood from the start, but Big Foot regrouped for a close battle in the fourth.

“We weren’t done yet,” Long said. “We wanted to come out strong and show them we could come back.”

They actually led 20-18 after freshman Kennedy Hehr and Long made athletic plays to keep a ball alive, but the Chiefs couldn’t put the Crusaders away.

Senior Kaelyn Kessel had three of her match-high 28 kills over the final seven points to punch Edgewood’s ticket to state.

The loss ended a successful season for the Chiefs, who weren’t exactly sure what to expect with an inexperienced lineup this year but finished with a 38-6 record and a deep tournament run.